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More on Esperanto

Ludwig L. Zamenhof, troubled by hostilities among Russians, Jews, Poles, and Germans where he grew up, invented Esperanto to serve as a “bridge” between languages. Photo taken in 1904.

I’ve posted several times about Esperanto, having been active in the bridge-language movement for quite a few years. As I was driving to Providence recently and surfing channels, I heard Freakonomics pick up the story.

“In our previous episode, we looked at the idea of a universal language. One candidate was Esperanto, a language invented in the 19th century by a Jewish ophthalmologist named Ludovik Lazarus Zamenhof. Derived from various European roots, Esperanto was meant to be easy to learn and egalitarian. The idea was not for Esperanto to supersede existing languages.

“STEPHANIE TAM: Estimates for how many people speak Esperanto range, but the Ethnologue, a comprehensive language database, cites 2 million speakers spanning 100 countries. Just 1,000 of those are native speakers, who grow up in Esperanto-speaking families and usually also speak 1 or 2 other national languages. The most famous of these is probably the billionaire financier George Soros. But for the vast majority — well, they might be the only Esperanto speakers in the area. … Why on earth learn it?

“I traveled to the Esperanto-USA National Congress to find out. For the past several years, it’s been held at William Peace University, in Raleigh, North Carolina. …

“Lee Miller [is] a 65-year-old Texan and former sign language interpreter and nurse. He learned Esperanto at 16; now, he teaches it in his retirement. He and another Esperantist picked me up from the airport and drove me to campus. …

“A lot of Esperantists describe their community as a kind of family.

“MILLER: If I were in a group like this and I needed somebody to hold my wallet, with all my money in it, I would hand it to an Esperanto speaker in full confidence that whenever I came back, they would hand it back to me and my money would still be in it. I have that level of confidence and trust in the people.

“TAM: The National Congress is a combination of socializing, workshops, and seminars … This year, there were about 70 attendees, with guests flying in from Canada, the Netherlands, and elsewhere — and about 1,000 streaming from Facebook Live. …

“This year’s keynote speaker was Humphrey Tonkin, an English professor at the University of Hartford and former president of the Universal Esperanto Association. … He delivered the speech in Esperanto, and gave me an English translation afterward.

“HUMPHREY TONKIN: Zamenhof emphasized that, first and foremost, we are human beings, and only secondarily members of particular nations or peoples or languages. If appealing to what is best in humanity rather than reinforcing what divides us is idealistic or utopian, I suppose we must plead guilty. But, if using what brings us together to talk about and celebrate what makes us all different is a rational approach to our divided world, then Esperanto seems to me to make a great deal of sense.”

Tam goes on to interview many of the participants — for example, Orlando Raola, former president of Esperanto-USA.

“RAOLA: I’m originally from Cuba, where I also was part of the Esperanto movement. In real life, I work as a professor of chemistry in Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa, California. …

“Having been born in an island, and being an islander by nature, I always had this great curiosity: what is beyond the sea? … I understood early that the only way to communicate with humans is through language, and I was interested in many different cultures. …

“I was always fascinated by the culture of Nordic countries, especially Sweden. I once wrote a letter to the Swedish Institute — it’s a Swedish institution that disseminates Swedish culture outside Sweden. I sent them a letter: ‘I want to learn this language, I want to get to know about this culture.’ A few months later, I got a big package with everything you need to know to learn Swedish — dictionaries, cassettes, courses for learning language, reading material. It was a big box! I said, ‘This is a very difficult language. I’m going to spend how many years learn[ing] this? Then, I will be able to communicate with a very tiny sliver of mankind!’ I am very interested in the culture, but I am [also interested] in the culture of Japan, Hungary, and of China! Do I have time to learn all of these languages? No, there won’t be time. …That’s the day I became an Esperantist.”

The language is easy to learn and, though European-based, has a consistency that appeals to speakers of non-European languages. I do think the accent marks that indicate how to pronounce a letter might turn off some people. But the overall concept is just too logical and loving to ever completely die out.

I don’t. It’s too sensible for this ol’ world. Once a guy who was sitting next to me on an airplane and asking what I was reading, joked, “That makes a lot of sense. Sounds subversive.” In a way, he was right.